Oh, give me a break! It's not racist to point out that KH was a DEI pick for veep. Dems were not even hiding that they were looking for a black woman to nominate. Just like with SCOTUS justice or US Senator from California, nobody except black women needed to apply.
There are several possible meanings when someone uses the word, “DEI.”
- DEI can mean that yes, systems are being used to undo the previous system that excluded minorities and women. The DEI programs are built to remove existing barriers; resulting in more equitable results and better sense of unity, that positively affects the bottom line. It can include making sure that, of all the qualified candidates, you make sure you include, and do not exclude, minority candidates. And when you hire only one at a time, you acknowledge that when the past 45 have been white men, this one has absolutely no need whatsoever to again be a white man.
The problem here is that you're deliberately fudging the measurement to get the desired result.
There should not be a bunch of qualified candidates for a position. If you have a bunch of qualified candidates that means your selection criteria aren't strict enough. Fundamentally, DEI is about lowering standards until you have enough "qualified" people that meet your discrimination objective.
- DEI can also mean, to some, that terrifyingly, the jobs are not protected for one’s own ilk any more, and that this is equivalent to oppression.
But there is really only one meaning when someone says “DEI pick”
- And that is that there are no qualified minority candidates and therefore any minority candidate that was hired is due to preferring representation over qualifications
- The underlying admission is that they cannot conceive of a qualified minority hire, and therefore must derisively use the term “DEI pick” or “DEI hire” out loud to showcase their racist belief and seek validation. This speaks not only to their subconscious knowledge that they are wrong, but also their lack of faith in themselves to live among the truth that they were not born better, and they have failed to become better.
So long as you continue to ignore the actual nature of the problem you'll reach this conclusion.
I do think a lot of people who complain about DEI hires are racists. It provides a cover for them. But when you set out to find a person who is X it inherently discriminatory. You recognize it as discriminatory when X is "white male", but don't realize it applies just as much whatever X is.